Cultural Sensetivity, Beer...

I'm going to Oktoberfest this weekend. Actually, I'm going to a local American Oktoberfest, which is just another case of Americans using some other cultures meaningful holiday as an excuse to drink beer.

I'm not condemning this practice (I said I was going, didn't I), but I think its a bit sad that we claim to be celebrating something we really don't care about by hanging up crepe paper and cardboard signs that have stupid cartoony pictures declaring: "Happy Oktoberfest/Cinco De Mayo/St. Patrick's Day/4th of July". As if we really care about any of those days.

I imagine other western cultures would never do such a thing, but if they did here's how I think it would go down:

The Writ-Fish* would drink room temperature beer and reminisce about how they used to rule the country who's holiday is being celebrated.

The Pyre-Fish* wouldn't bother with the decorations.

The Wrench* would just keep drinking red wine and make snide remarks about how the country's civilization hasn't produced the same great achievements as the Wrench's has.

The Hermans* would laugh at the pathetic inferiority of the beer from the country in question.

The Handmaidians* would just do whatever the people in the country they were currently in are doing as part of their continued effort to take over the world by looking just like the rest of us. The bastards.

(* I've cleverly replaces the names of each culture with another word so as to avoid obvious stereotypes).